Skye's Effect
by PurpleRain96
Summary: Skye had a terrible childhood with her foster brother, Trent. But after watching Trent suffer in a mental home for the past two years, Skye has finally figured a way to change things. All she needs is a little help and cooperation, and there's only one person who can give her that. *WARNING* contains swearing. Could I please have help choosing a better title? Thanks!
1. Chapter 1

There it was, the very place I was scared to death of. Some dark part of me was terrified that I might end up in here again one day. I didn't know how I could end up in there; it was as if I was afraid I would do something blindly insane and have to be locked away. It's how Trent ended up here.

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to, I'm sure he will understand." Dad said beside me with his hands grasped at the steering wheel.

"No, I do. I have to do this." I replied. "It'd be good to see him anyway. It's been too long."

I rummaged through my busy purse past the many medicines and capsules until I finally groped my ventolin inhaler and took three big puffs with it, barely giving myself enough time to breathe the previous inhales.

"Are you sure?" Dad asked, knowing that I wasn't taking the ventolin because of asthma.

I seriously considered it for a moment, but stepped out of the car before I could think any further. My heart started pumping rapidly. I took another deep breath, struggling to convince myself that I was still sane and there was nothing to worry about.

"Skye, say 'hi' to him for me," Dad called.

I nodded to him, faking a smile and turned back facing the building. St. Xavier's Mental Institute; I couldn't believe it had only been three years since I was released from here, yet at the same time it felt like I never left. I felt bad for two reasons: for leaving and for coming back. It was just my anxiety, I knew that, but even with every pill I popped in my mouth I felt no different about this place or who I left behind.

I entered the building, my heart already started to feel like I was going to throw it up. I took another puff of my ventolin and bricanyl – it probably wasn't good for me to take both.

"Hi," I greeted the man at the front desk, pulling at my jacket nervously. "I'm Skye Feldman and I'm here to see Trent Masterson."

"Bag please," he ordered.

He looked surprised as soon as he opened my bag, and took out the majority of it which was mostly pills, tablets, liquid medicines and asthma puffs.

"Asthmatic, anaemic, anxiety disorder, hypoglycemic, arthritic…I have issues." I explained, pointing to each of the medicines.

"Turn out your pockets, please."

I did so and took out another inhaler and my heart monitor. "For heart palpitations," I added.

"I'm sorry do you have a doctors' certificate for these?"

It took him a while to get approval from the other staff members but I was eventually escorted through to a room with board games and people who made squeaking or moaning noises and swore abruptly.

"Trent will be with you in a moment. He might look tired; we just gave him his medicine." A nurse told me.

"Okay," I nodded.

It didn't take me long to have another one of my short flashbacks to three years ago where I was in this exact room with Trent where we were playing connect four.

_November 14__th__ 2004_

"You're cheating," I smiled. "You can't do that, a zigzag doesn't count as connecting four."

"What are you talking about? Of course it counts. It looks like a Pikachu tail." Trent replied.

"Yes, and I'm sure somewhere in Japan, you make an animator happy. But if that counts, so does my weird looking snail."

We both laughed. We had our good days, and this was definitely one of them, even if we were stuck inside playing board games. Nurses would come every now and again to give us pills and fix Trent's drip, but it was as if no one was there. When we had our happy days, we were _really_ happy.

"Hey guys," Jena greeted as she approached our table, twitching her shoulders and scrunching her eyes. "Can I play?"

That was the last thing I remembered before I had Jena pinned to the floor as I swiped my fingernails down her face making her scream and writhe under me.

"Now Skye, calm down, calm down!" a nurse urged me, pulling me off Jena. "It's okay, let's go to Doctor Michael, alright?"

All eyes from everyone in the room were on me, including Trent. A couple of other nurses went to help Jena whose tics were going crazy and her face was bleeding from my inflamed scratch mark.

"What happened?" I said, panicking as more nurses came to take me away. "What did I do? Trent what happened?"

Trent stared at me in horror without a word. He only answered me by flicking his eyes over at Jena. The connect four stand was broken to pieces and the tokens were all over the floor.

"Oh my god, Jena I'm so sorry! I swear, I didn't mean to!"

_Present day_

The blackouts used to happen to me a lot, but it had been three years since my last blackout. No one knew what it was, only that it was caused by stress and anxiety, so doctors told me to write what I did every day until the blackouts stopped. Instead of writing in a diary or taking photos of the day or something, I wrote everything to my pen pal in New Orleans, because honestly I was afraid of reading things over and remembering something awful I did to someone – or something awful that happened to me – and I just needed to talk to someone.

Soon a nurse came in pushing a wheelchair with who I couldn't believe was Trent. He looked so much older even though he was only twenty. His hair was a lot shorter – he almost had no hair at all – all around his mouth was covered in a short prickly beard, his eyes were dark and red like he could fall asleep at any minute and he looked like he just didn't give a crap anymore.

"He's a little bit out of it, it might take him some time to properly wake up." The nurse explained before leaving.

She was right. Trent was just staring at one spot as if he wasn't completely there.

"It's good to see you, Trent." I said.

He still didn't move or talk. I tried not to be frustrated.

"Trent!" I called without thinking.

He suddenly blinked a few times, breaking out of his daydream, and his eyes finally focused on me. He began smiling at me.

"Hey," he grinned excitedly. "Skye, I didn't know you were coming."

"I told them to keep it a surprise," I replied. "It's so good to see you."

I reached for his right hand, but when he looked at it, it took me a while to realise why he couldn't hold my hand.

"Sorry," I whispered, reaching for his other hand so he could hold mine. "I forgot you can't feel that."

"It's okay, I just forget I have an arm there now." he shrugged. "So, how have you been?"

"Fine, I go to college now, I'm studying to become a historian. I'm just back for the holidays."

"So, you're going to visit a lot more?"

"Yeah, of course. I've missed you and I want to see you more often."

"I'd like that."

I wasn't convinced he was happy. I believed he was happy to see me but not as happy as I would have liked him to be. It was really starting to piss me off and I don't know why.

"I have something for you,"

"You do?"

"Mm-hm," I groped through my bag again for the hidden pamphlet crinkled at the bottom of the bag.

"That's…a lot of meds," Trent commented.

"Yeah, you know those meds I was had when I was here? I'm still taking them. It turns out asthma, hypoglycaemia, anaemia, arthritis and all that sticks to you for a while."

"And you're all good with it?"

"Yeah, I'm not going to quit life just because of some sicknesses."

"Why?"

I just wanted to slap him for that. I couldn't believe how much he had given up in only two years.

"Because there's a world out there and there are things to do. Sitting around your whole life is a complete and total waste of your time."

Trent looked at me as if I was saying the most ridiculous things. I hoped to god it was just his meds talking. He opened his mouth but stopped and sighed. "What did you want to show me?"

Angry, I slapped the pamphlet on the table close to his reach. He picked it up and studied the pictures of the large two-storey beach house under the bright light of the sun. I could almost see the glimmer of joy in his eyes, but my heart slowly sank when I thought it was just me wishing too hard.

"What is this?" he asked.

"That's going to be my new house, and _yours_ too." I replied. "My birth parents sent me some money and it turns out I own a beach house right near my college. Trent, I want you to come live with me. Your doctors said you're well enough to be released, your meds are just for your mental issues–"

"You actually think I'm well enough to get out of here?" Trent interrupted with a snap.

"No! I think you're preventing getting better so you can stay here and feel sorry for yourself. Let me tell you, it's not worth it. Trust me, I've tried. But you know what I did? I wanted to get over it and I let myself."

"I don't want to get over it!" he shouted so loudly it startled me and a few others in the room. "I know it sounds like a selfish thing to say, but I _don't!_ This is who I am and this is how I'm going to stay – a fucked up cripple who can't feel the right side of his body."

"You're right Trent, that _is _selfish!" I yelled. I was starting to cry hard now without realising until I felt how wet my face was. It took me a while to notice that Trent was crying too. "Because instead of always being there for me, like you said, you've decided to give up, like you said you would _never_ do!"

"Well it looks like you're doing a damn good job without me."

"Shut up, Trent!" I screamed. "Grow a pair, pack your bags and please, for the love of god, come home. You have no idea how much it is killing me that I can't see you every day."

"Miss, we're going to have to ask you to leave." A nurse ordered.

"Five minutes!" I barked without meaning to and turned back to Trent. "I am not giving up on you. Even if it takes every second of every day for the rest of my life, I am not going to let you give up your life."

Trent then turned on his wheelchair as if he was in a hurry to leave and wiped his tear-stained face with his sleeve.

"Trent!" I cried.

He stopped turning and just let himself cry for one long moment. I wanted so badly to run into his arms and hear him crying his apologies over and over again. Instead, he just turned to me and said "You were right about what you said in the hospital; I should have died."

I thought I would scream at him again but I just cried along with him. "You know that's not what I meant."

He stared at me for a long moment as if he desperately wanted to say something to me but couldn't spit it out. _Say it please, just spit it the hell out!_ I thought aggressively. But he turned away and drove himself out until he was completely out of sight.

"Miss Feldman, are you alright?" the nurse asked.

I thought she only meant because of the fight I had with Trent until I found myself wheezing and coughing along with my heart palpitations sky-rocketing.

I gasped in the strong puffs of my inhaler until I finally felt like I could breathe again. But that didn't mean I didn't stop feeling like I was going to die.

* * *

**A/N: Sooooooo what do you think? Please write reviews and let me know how I'm doing :)**


	2. Chapter 2

_February 2__nd__ 1997_

"Skye, go upstairs and tell your brother dinner's ready." My foster dad ordered, taking another large huff of his cigarette.

"He's in the bathroom," I said, scribbling down notes in my green notepad.

"Then get him of there. I didn't ask you just to make conversation,"

I held back the death stare I had longed to give him and held my head up high heading upstairs.

"Trent, dinner's ready." I called, rapping my knuckles on the bathroom door.

"Dad keeps cyanide in the cabinet," Trent called back as if he wasn't even afraid if Dad heard.

"What's cyanide?" I asked.

"Poison, we need to get rid of it. No wait, I've got a better idea. Let's feed it to him."

"What? Trent, open the door!"

"Think about it, he treats us like nothing but shit and we just let him do it!"

"Trent, open the d–"

He suddenly pulled me into the bathroom abruptly and locked the door behind us as if we were desperate to hide from someone. I guess we sort of were.

"Trent, what are you talking about? Put the bottle down!" I said in a loud yet hushed voice.

"This can change our lives, Skye." He held the small bottle close to my face. This didn't even sound like Trent anymore. He was never this loud or passionate about anything. "If we give him this our lives won't turn into shit and we can live happy."

"You can't talk like that. If Dad hears he'll beat you to a pulp,"

"Then when he comes up here we can throw it in his face."

"Stop this! Listen to yourself, you're really talking about killing him? Just please put the bottle down and we can go downstairs and have dinner and pretend this never happened."

"Skye," he sighed deeply. He then looked at the bottle disappointingly and pulled the cork off. He raised the bottle as if he was making a toast. I couldn't believe what he was doing. "If he won't take it, I will."

"Put it down, Trent!"

"You would agree with this solution in the future. You'd know it was the only way."

"Stop it, Trent!"

He shrugged like he didn't care and raised the bottle to his lips.

"TRENT, NO!" I shrieked.

I pushed him to the ground causing the bottle to spill and roll out of his hand. I forced him away from the liquid as he fought against my hands pinned to his wrists. He tried kicking me a few times while screaming that this was the only way for us. But then, he stopped fighting and it looked like he went somewhere else for a moment. Then he blinked a few times and looked around him confusingly as if he didn't know where he was.

"W-what happened?" he asked. I knew he was back to his old quiet self again.

I got off him quickly. He stared around the room scared and confused and pushed himself away from the spilt cyanide all over the floor.

"Skye, what happened to me? I was talking to you in the lounge room just before and…I was just somewhere else!" he stuttered, panicking. "What happened?"

"You said you wanted to kill Daddy," I mumbled.

I helped him up and he just kept staring at the bottle. "I don't remember,"

"It's okay," I assured, hugging his shivering body tightly.

And that's when I realised. Trent had what I had. I wasn't the only one who suffered from the blackouts. Did I really do things like that when I had a blackout?

"What are you two doing in there? Get downstairs now!" Dad growled, making both Trent and I jump.

"We'll be there soon, we just spilt water on the floor!" I called.

"Well hurry the fuck up or I'll give your food to the dog!"

We waited until we knew he was gone to talk again. Trent's breathing started becoming heavy and fast as he stared at me wide-eyed and his body still quivering.

"Trent, Ssh, it's okay. You didn't hurt anyone you just scared me a little. Let's just clean this up, go downstairs and we'll talk about this later. I promise, everything is going to be fine." I declared, holding his face securely between my hands.

"I–I…I," Trent choked, crying hard now. "I d-don't remember,"

_Present Day_

I assumed Trent didn't want to see me again for a while. I could have been sad about it but was still getting over the fact that who I saw was in fact Trent. He was just so different from the Trent I remembered. I didn't even get the chance to ask him how long it had been since he had a blackout. I wanted to know if his stopped like mine did or if he could remember anything. But after everything today, I knew it was the last thing he wanted to be reminded of.

I threw my bag on the living room chair and sunk lazily in the couch, drawing out a long huff of breath. But I didn't relax for long when I noticed a suitcase at the corner of my eye.

"Gramma," I called, jumping up from the couch and commencing to the kitchen. "There's a suitcase at the front door."

"Yes, there is." was all she said.

"Well, whose is it?"

"You seriously have to ask?" a voice said from behind me. The girl with long black hair tied in a neat ponytail smiled at me cheekily.

"Amelia?" I exclaimed as we ran into each other's arms laughing.

Amelia is my pen pal from New Orleans. When I started writing to her, I just chose a random name from the phone book and didn't hesitate to write everything I felt down. I wasn't worried that she would tell anyone because I didn't give her a return address until I was out of the mental institute. That's when I really wanted an answer back because I didn't have Trent to talk to anymore. We became really good friends and this was only the third time I had seen her.

"Bitch," she said teasingly, shoving my shoulders. "Why have you stopped writing me?"

"Hey, don't bite my head off, I go to college."

"Yes, reading crap about how the first president got a hangnail. Fine, I guess I can let that slide but you still forgot that I was coming."

"I can explain…I made plans to see Trent and I guess I just got distracted by that."

"Well, how is he?"

I opened my mouth to say something but pursed my lips closed. She seemed to have gotten the picture. When Amelia was serious, she was a really understanding person.

"Did you…bring my letters?" I asked in a whisper.

She looked as though she was expecting me to ask this and gestured upstairs and we both sprinted for the guest room. I sat on the bed and she glanced over at the door while searching through a bag as though to check to see if anyone was coming.

"Every single one of them," she replied, handing me a large file.

I widened my eyes. "_All_ of them?"

"Mm-hm," she nodded, sitting beside me. "Thirteen years of letters just like you asked for."

I started searching through the file but I hesitated and thought hard about what I was doing. Was I really ready to look back at my childhood? Did I really want to risk remembering things that gave Trent and me nightmares?

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Amelia asked.

I finally came to the conclusion and nodded. "Choose one for me. I don't think I can start from the beginning."

I closed my eyes as she picked one of the letters at random and read it quickly before handing it to me.

"This was only a few years ago when you were in the institute." Amelia explained. "Just take a deep breath. Remember, no one's forcing you to do this."

"I have to read them sometime. Either I'm going to start now or I'm never going to read them."

"But what good is it going to do you?"

"I don't know. Maybe if I read these I can just try and remember. I can't talk anymore, I have to do this now."

I began reading before I could change my mind.

"November fourteenth two-thousand-and-four," I started reading aloud. "Dear Amelia, I thought I was going to be put in a straightjacket today. Because when I had my last blackout I was attacking Jena for a reason I can't remember. It's a weird feeling being–"

Things around me began to shiver, but it stopped as soon as I noticed it. I looked up and Amelia to see if she had seen anything. But she was still listening to me intently.

"You okay?" she asked.

I nodded and continued to read. "It's a weird feeling to be really happy at first and then at the blink of an eye you're so mad you could kill someone."

Things started to shake again, rougher this time, but I kept reading. "Everyone looked at me as if I had done something really terrible, including Trent. I hear whispers around the hospital saying they can't believe what I said. I wish I could remember what I said but in a way–"

Now everything was shaking violently. But the odd part was the words on the page were shaking unevenly to everything else.

"What's happening?"

"Are you okay?" Amelia asked again, she was still sitting casually looking at me concerned.

Everything happened in a blink, and I was sucked into the words of the letter and suddenly I was sitting at a table with a 'connect four' stand and there were two hospital bracelets around my wrists. There were noises here and there around the room from low cries to sudden barking. _I'm in the hospital._

"Skye," Trent said in front of me. His black hair was longer like I was used to and he looked a lot happier. "So, do I win?"

I thought of every possible explanation. _Oh my god, it's happened. I've _actually_ gone insane. This is some kind of weird mental breakdown. Or maybe I overdosed on meds. Can you overdose on _ventolin_? No, I've been in the mental hospital this whole time, and the three years ahead were just an alternate universe I made up in my head._

"Are you okay?" Trent asked.

I forced myself to calm down and think clearly. "W-what's going on?"

"Hey guys," Jena greeted as she approached our table, twitching her shoulders and scrunching her eyes. "Can I play?"

That's when I realised why I attacked her (or was _going_ to attack her). I had thought in the past that maybe it was because of her annoying tics or the fact that she wanted to be my friend when I wanted to be left alone for a little while. But I finally got it. I knew her from the foster home I came from. Trent's parents were originally going to take her under their wing but Jena didn't want to go so I went instead. It was her fault. My life wouldn't be so screwed up if it wasn't for her. Neither would Trent's. Because of her, our lives were now being lived in an insane asylum. I was so angry it began to scare me.

"You…" I mumbled.

"What?" Jenna asked, knotting her eyebrows in confusion.

"FUCK YOU!" I screamed, smacking the 'connect four' stand across her face.

As soon as she fell to the floor I didn't give her time to breathe. I pinned her down and began punching and slapping her harder than I thought I could.

"Fuck you! You fucking ruined us!" I screamed in her face followed by other insults that involved the word 'fuck'.

As Jena kicked and screamed under me while others just stared, I could see at the corner of my eye that one of the teenage patients was filming me on their phone. I didn't care. I was already in a mental home, what more could be done to me?

Abruptly, I scraped my nails down Jena's face just before a nurse picked me up and spoke to me calmly as if I was only stressing out.

"Now Skye, calm down, calm down!" the nurse urged me, pulling me off Jena. "It's okay, let's go to Doctor Michael, alright?"

Suddenly, as quick as a flash, I was back in my room bolting upright as if I had woken up from a horrible nightmare.

"Thank God," Amelia sighed in relief, putting her hand to her chest. "I thought you were dead."

"What happened?" I asked.

"You were reading the letter and you passed out. Skye, I don't think you should read it anymore."

"I need to get on the computer," my mind was racing. I jumped on the spinning chair in front of my computer.

"No Skye, what you need is to rest. I saw it, your eyes were rolling back."

I wasn't listening. I was too busy looking at every internet video under the words 'mental patients breakdown', 'mental patients fight' but it turned out my video was listed 'mental patients bitch tackle'.

There I was on the screen tackling Jenna who was crying under me while I screamed 'fuck you' in her face.

"Oh god, it actually happened." I mumbled, snagging my bag from the end of my bed. "I have to see Trent!"


End file.
